The Lucifer Messiah (19 page)

Vince passed out before he had a chance to protest.

Outside the door, in the altar-room, Argus fell. Charybdis rushed to his side, calling for Arachne.

“It would appear that my time has finally arrived,” Argus muttered, through a mouth that was almost obscured by the dead skin flaking away from his lesions. “Please take me to my chair, my place is all prepared.”

Charybdis did as she was told, lifting the toddler for the last time and setting him down on his confessional chair. The surreal child sighed. He closed his tiny little red eyes just in time for a large sheaf of lifeless skin on his neck to harden, and fall away from his body.

Arachne called out from behind a moment later. “You startled me. I was not aware that he had entered the molting.”

“Just now,” Charybdis replied.

“Have you brought Scylla back with you as well?” Arachne asked.

Charybdis did not answer, she was faltering as well. Arachne noticed for the first time that her skin had begun to swell like Argus's.

“No, she remains where I found her, in a small hotel just outside of Times Square,” the African finally managed. “She has entered the cocoon, and could not be moved. I will go back to look after her until she has emerged.”

Arachne still appeared healthy, with no sign of the malady that had overcome her master and was now beginning to plague her fellow servant. When Charybdis tried to straighten herself up, she stumbled and fell to one knee.

“You can't go anywhere. Not right now,” she said. “You're only hours away from the process yourself.”

“I must go. I cannot leave Scylla again,” Charybdis protested.

“I will go. I will watch over her while you rest. Once you have emerged, you can re-join us,” Arachne offered.

“But you will enter it as well, soon enough,” Charybdis replied.

“True, but you are no good to anyone right now. You can't even travel in public like this. Let me help you.”

Reluctantly, Charybdis agreed. She set herself down to rest.

“I have to say Charybdis, though I have known you for some time, I do find myself a little surprised,” Arachne remarked as she helped her friend recline beside the ancient one.

“How is that?”

“You're known for your loyalty, renowned for it, really. So I'm a little surprised that you'd betray the Morrigan so completely, after so many years. And for Argus's sake, no less,” Arachne replied.

Charybdis kept her expression cold. She adjusted her torso by shifting her weight to her back.

“Not for Argus. Not for him at all,” Charybdis answered, putting her head down to rest.

Arachne had taken the directions and gone to the hotel
without delay. She had found Room 115 just as Charybdis had told her it would be: dusty, dingy, and empty. There was only one thing in the room that didn't seem to belong there. Stepping around the bed and its cigarette-stained sheets, farther around the nightstand with an unread King James Bible on it, she came to a broad canvas sheet. It was covering something large.

With a motion like a circus ringleader, she lifted the sheet and snapped it off. A cloud of dust spilled into the staid hotel-room air.

Beneath was the figure known to the local underworld as Rat. He was frozen it seemed, in a swath of hardened, translucent ooze that covered his entire naked body.

“So that is the legendary Scylla?” Arachne said, sounding impressed, despite the fact that she was essentially alone.

Arachne moved a little closer, to get a better view.

“So many stories about you,” she continued, knowing full well that Scylla was in no position to hear, much less respond. “Strange to see you in a man's form. Somehow I pictured you differently. Scylla the Slayer. Kali the Black.”

Arachne probed the sticky husk that had now grown fully over the rat-faced man's skin.

“I suppose I will see soon enough,” she said.

S
AM
C
ALABRESE AND
I
NDIAN
J
OE
W
ALKED UNDER
cover of night, through the ghost town of rust and ragweed that was Pier 33. Their car had been parked within the warehouse nearest the western edge of the property, as had all of the cars of those who were now gathering there. It was important for the place to continue to appear deserted. Secrecy was now paramount.

The things that were to follow could not be witnessed by outsiders.

“Has Scylla contacted us?” Calabrese asked as they walked, his aide lagging a step behind for the first time in recent memory.

Indian Joe did not answer. He yawned instead, looking as though he hadn't slept in days. Gray circles had begun to fill in under his eyes. Anger was clearly etched across his boss's wide face, though. The fat man's eyes seethed.

“Tell me again. How long has it been?” the bloated gangster continued.

The Native American lifted his left arm slowly, as though the simple movement hurt him. With a scowl, he
pulled back the sleeve of his suit coat to reveal his watch. The skin around his wrist had become dry, speckled white and black rather than reddish-brown. Long bristles of hair, or maybe fur, were poking through in places. The nails of his fingers had grown unusually long as well. They were beginning to turn black.

“Her last report came in nearly twelve hours ago,” he managed. “She had spotted Sicario again after nearly a day of searching. She was about to move in. There has been no contact since then.”

“Perhaps she has begun the change,” Calabrese replied.

“Possible, but we spoke of that. She was under strict orders, if the molting were to come over her suddenly, she was to contact one of our agents. None of our people have had any word,” Joseph replied, his breathing slow and difficult as he walked.

Calabrese did not seem at all worried by his friend's condition.

“Disturbing, to be certain. We'll need to send someone to her refuge. Make sure that she has not begun the change. If she has, she might be there,” Calabrese said.

“There is another possibility,” the Indian said.

“Argus.”

“Indeed. Scylla reported the ancient one's followers were tracking Sicario as well. If they got to her, she may already be dead. And Argus may have Sicario, or even Mulcahy by now,” Joe said.

“I must speak with our old friend,” Calabrese answered.

“Argus? No one seems to know his location, since he
arrived in New York, he and his followers have hidden themselves from us. None of our agents have been able to learn their whereabouts.”

Calabrese did not appear concerned.

“The ancient one is cautious. His many years have taught him the value of privacy. I don't begrudge him his secrecy. If he is indeed plotting against me, he will not tip his hand even a moment before he acts. And he will not act until the moment is right.

“I know that he has visited the Bleecker Street Haven, and spoken with those of our kind in residence there. I have told them that I will appear there personally tomorrow, to announce my intentions. Argus will be there.

“I will speak to all of our flock that has gathered, to welcome those who remain loyal to me, and to gauge the treason of those who may not be.”

They stopped their trail when they came before the same enormous structure that they had inspected only a few days earlier. This time neither man entered. Indian Joe rapped on the aluminum door, and both awaited a response.

It came quickly, but not in the form of a person to greet them. As if by unseen hands, the door opened from the inside.

“Many of our folk have gathered within. The molting continues. Some have already emerged. They will expect the festival to begin soon,” Joseph said.

“And your time is fast approaching as well, is it not?” he replied.

“I shall take my rest within, this night. By your leave,
of course.”

“By all means, Lycaon,” the boss answered. “The time for this charade is now over. Salvatore Calabrese dies tonight. For the second time.”

Both men entered, and the door soon closed in the same way. They were plunged into total darkness. It was cold, and it was quiet. A reddish light shone from the distance ahead of them, but it was impossible to know how far away the glow burned.

“Come forth, children. Your master has arrived to see after the feast,” Calabrese said, but in a different and altogether softer voice than the gangster had ever used.

The reddish hue blossomed then, but strangely, it seemed to cast no light upon the figures of Calabrese and Joseph. From its center there stepped forward three silhouettes. They were cloaked, but clearly feminine in shape. The two on each flank held lances high. The blades beamed reflected firelight like steel torches.

The one in the middle, unarmed, lowered her veil and revealed her face to the pair. It was canine. Part hound, part lady. She was strangely beautiful, with sharply angled features, a round black nose and delicate whiskers that flared from the sides of her snout. Her eyes were black slits set in green crystal.

When she spoke, the words growled from between deadly fangs.

“The Daughters of Cerberus bid you welcome, Keeper. The preparations proceed as per Lycaon's direction. May the festival meet with your expectations,” she said.

Their message given, the three receded, and their peculiar glow with them. In moments they were once again absorbed into the shadows from which they had appeared. A second door opened, only a few feet in front of the two men.

The sounds of chatter, and the bright light of lamps and braziers, spilled onto them.

Indian Joe turned. Sam Calabrese was no longer beside him.

A new figure had replaced the slobbering hood. Presiding among the smoke and the darkness, there stood an elegant, towering woman. A shroud that glittered deep crimson swirled around her like a pool of blood. Black tresses flowed from her crown in a waterfall of shadows, and her pallid features exuded a delicate glimmer.

“Shall we enter, Queen Morrigan?” Joseph asked.

Vince did not know that the night had passed, or that morning now dawned upon the city. But he did know that something sinister lurked just out of sight.

The room in which he was held was dark. When a noise roused him from sleep, his mind immediately began imagining what might have made it.

Something entered through a concealed side door. Vince tried to look, but for all his straining against the dark, he could not see more than a hint of movement. The figure moved through the shadows along the wall, nimble as a cat.

Vince shuddered.

“You need not fear, my friend. As I told you yesterday, you are safe here. I assure you.”

The voice that greeted him was familiar. It was that of the child with the weird red eyes. The one who had named himself Argus. But when the figure emerged into the candlelight, the child was nowhere in sight. It was a new, and utterly peculiar being, which had presented itself. Unlike the truncated, diseased frame of the boy he had met a day earlier, the Argus before him now was long and lean of limb, but he resembled a man in that respect only. The remainder of his features were, to Vince's sight, utterly hideous.

Three gleaming eyes were set like a triad of ruby stones upon a face that seemed carved from white granite. A long, thin nose almost merged with his stark, ladylike cheeks. His lips were full and rounded like a woman's, but eerily bluish and hypothermic against the pallor of his skin.

Combed back from his temples, waves of shimmering, blood-red hair gathered the candlelight in deathly sparkles. It fell thick over his bony shoulders and clung so close to his skin that it seemed to drip across his androgynous breasts. His limbs were stringy, the musculature pulled tight beneath his cold flesh. His hands grew uncommonly long.

When he lifted them, they turned to reveal the palms in a fluid, dancer-like motion. Nestled in the heart of each was a crimson eye staring outward with its own conscious gaze, just as the three atop his forehead.

Then he lowered the shiny leather belt that held fast the
layered, silken folds of his skirt, which fell to the floor and hid all of his lower quarters. There, a sixth eye, brilliant and scarlet as the others, peered forth from the navel. As a single, bizarre concession to vanity, a silver ring pierced the skin of his lower belly. It was the only jewelry the ancient creature ever wore.